Schools

Like students in neighboring Mills Park, Huntington Park children are assigned to one of three K-5 schools, depending on their address. Students living in the northern end of the neighborhood attend Decima Allen Elementary School, with 371 students a recent API of 826 and a Great Schools rating of 6 out of 10. Students at the southern end attend El Crystal Elementary School, within the borders of Huntington Park, with 256 students, a Great Schools rating of 8 out of 10 and a recent API of 870. Students at the neighborhoods western edge attend John Muir Elementary School, with 359 students, a Great Schools rating of 8 out of 10 and a recent API of 897. Like all students in San Bruno, they all then move onto Parkside Intermediate School, which has 516 students in grades 6 through 8, a Great Schools rating of 7 out of 10 and an API of 785, then finish at Capuchino High School (API 796) or Peninsula Alternative High School.

History

There are two major east-west roads running through Huntington Park, Jenevein Avenue and Crystal Springs Road. They are two of San Bruno’s oldest roads, and each comes with its own unique history.

At one time, Crystal Springs Road was one of only two east-west streets (Sneath Lane was the other) leading from downtown San Bruno to Skyline Drive. Crystal Springs met Skyline not at San Andreas Lake, as it does today, but at the towns of Laguna and Crystal Springs, which had grown up around an old resort, also called Crystal Springs. In the late 1880s, the Spring Valley Water Company, which had spent some 30 years purchasing property in Laguna and Crystal Springs, built the Crystal Springs Dam, which flooded the resort and both towns, creating Laguna and San Andreas Lakes, the latter being what you now see when you come to the end of Crystal Springs Road.

Jenevein Avenue is named after a San Bruno pioneer, August Jenevein, who came to San Bruno from Loraine, France, in 1874. By 1879, Jenevein was managing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a popular roadhouse located at the corner of El Camino Real and San Bruno Avenue. The waystation, also known as the “14 Mile House,” had been in operation since 1849, changing its name in 1871 when it was purchased by its then-cook, an ex-slave named Thomas Rolle.

Jenevein operated the restaurant/bar/stable until 1905, then established the Junction House, a French-style hotel, among other businesses. So significant was his impact on early San Bruno that the street comprising the border between Huntington Park and Mills Park bears his name.